When President Biden passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in July she immediately changed the momentum of the 2024 election and energized the Democrats' base voters. The Democratic National Convention reflected this new energy and excitement. It was a joyful event, especially compared to the Republican convention, which was like a funeral and cult meeting mixed with a coronation. Public opinion polls since then have suggested a historic reversal of momentum as Harris rapidly caught up with Trump.
Harris successfully channeled a high-dominance leadership style, and in her one and only debate with Trump she publicly humiliated him by being smarter and sharper, exposing his fake alpha-male persona.
Unfortunately, Harris and the Democrats have lost their momentum in recent weeks. They were like an army on the counterattack but are now bogged down in the mud in what has seemingly become a battle of attrition.
Public opinion polls show that, barely two weeks before Election Day, Harris and Trump are basically tied both nationally and in the key battleground states. Early voting in the battleground state of Georgia has shown high levels of turnout. This can be interpreted as either a positive sign for Harris (energized voters who want to stop Trump) or as a positive for Trump (his “quiet” or “secret” voters are turning out in droves). Trump continues to dominate the news headlines for his escalating threats against democracy and freedom, promises to be a dictator on “day one,” and plans to imprison his and the MAGA movement’s “enemies.” In what many mainstream political observers and professional centrists have described as foolish given the importance of the battleground states, Trump is also planning rallies and other events in blue states. I believe, however, that Trump’s blue-state rallies are a stroke of tactical and strategic genius.
During an interview last Sunday on Fox News, Trump transparently stated that he is prepared to defy the Constitution by using the military to crush “the left” and his other opposition: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within… totally destroying our country… [I]n terms of Election Day, I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by [the] National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Harris is pushing back against aspiring dictator Trump by publicly warning about his apparent mental and emotional instability and the extreme danger to the country and world. But with early voting already taking place and a highly polarized public discourse, in which too many Americans, despite the existential stakes, remain disengaged and undecided about this election and politics in general, can Harris leverage her high-dominance leadership energy to defeat Trump?
M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He has appeared on BBC, CNN and other major networks, and has published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Foreign Policy, among others. His new book is “Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge.”
In this conversation, Fish explains how and why Harris and the Democrats lost their momentum against Trump and the MAGAfied Republicans and offers specific advice for how Harris can defeat Trump by emphasizing his alliance with America’s traditional enemies and his escalating fascist threats. Fish counsels that Trump’s appeal among alienated men in the so-called manosphere presents an opportunity for Harris to undermine his appeal among that group.
We have about two weeks before Election Day. How are you feeling? Where are we?
In the weeks following the debate on Sept. 10, the Harris-Walz campaign lost momentum, and you can see it in the deadlocked swing-state polls that were earlier trending their way. The main reason is that the Democrats again grew skittish about delivering provocative, attention-grabbing messaging that controls the news cycle and drives home a narrative of strength, success and optimism. This represents a change from the first two months of Harris’ campaign when the Democrats were dominating both Trump and the news. Consequently, the headlines again shifted to Trump’s shock-and-awe attacks on democracy and the Democrats and Harris’ struggles to strike back. Fortunately, there are signs over the past week that the campaign may be shifting back into a higher-dominance mode. Harris is stepping up her media appearances, the messaging seems to be getting tougher and Presidents Obama and Clinton are finally hitting the campaign trail.
What does that worst and most negative version of a high-dominance leadership style look like? For Harris and other defenders of and believers in democracy what does the more ideal and good version of it look like?
We’re seeing the worst of high-dominance leadership in Trump, just as we have seen it in Putin and just as we saw it in Hitler. But high-dominance leadership is just a tool, and it can be used for good or ill. FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ and MLK deployed their dominance skills to crush Hitler, halt Stalin, slap down bigots like Charles Coughlin, George Wallace, and Barry Goldwater and enact practically every piece of progressive legislation that the Democrats are fighting a rearguard action to salvage today.
These Democrats called it like they saw it and aimed to make opinions rather than just reading polls and telling voters what they thought they wanted to hear. They embraced risk and played to win big rather than striving not to offend and hoping to squeak by. They inspired generations of Americans and people around the world with their grand plans, visions of America leading the world and ferocious devotion to justice. They defined the American Way in their own terms and brought the blessings of full citizenship to countless millions for whom it had earlier been a mirage.
The Democrats don’t lack high-dominance leaders today. Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett has a brilliant mind, but what’s propelled her from obscure first-term congresswoman to Democratic headliner over the past two years is her gleeful, high-dominance chutzpah. Ruben Gallego is turning MAGA charlatan Kari Lake into finely minced meat and will certainly thrash her in Arizona’s Senate race. California Rep. Adam Schiff is sailing to the Senate on the strength of his hardcore defense of democracy and forceful anti-Trump leadership. Gov. Andy Beshear often seems like a soft touch. But he’s governing like a progressive in deep-red Kentucky and never failing to tell people what he believes and Kentuckians love him and reelected him for it. Then there are Govs. Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro; the list goes on. We saw plenty of evidence early on that Harris and Walz also belong in this group and there are signs that they are trying to recapture the strength and emotional appeal of their earlier messaging. The question on which democracy hinges is: Will they pour it on now?
Trump is acting even more authoritarian and fascist. At his return rally in Butler, PA, the site of the assassination attempt, he returned to his fascist narrative that the “enemy from within” is more dangerous than any foreign adversary. Now he is invoking the Alien Enemies Act that was used to put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. He wants to crush “the leftists” and his other “enemies.” What’s his next move, escalation?
Change the name of the capital from Washington, D.C. to Trump, D.J.? Replace Lady Liberty with a statue of Hulk Hogan? Promise to zoom Putin into his national security briefings? Hard to say for sure, but yes, he’ll probably keep escalating. That should just make it easier for Harris and Walz to put him away, but they’ve got to take advantage.
What we’re seeing lately is Trump being Trump, no shocker there. Since all I care about is that the Democrats win, my thoughts are all about the unexploited opportunities being handed the Democrats to take Trump out. The statement you cite from the Butler rally, for example, gave the Democrats a great chance to scorn him for telling his fellow Americans that they pose a more dangerous threat to national security than do our worst foreign adversaries— who Trump openly calls his best foreign friends.
Harris hammered Trump at the DNC and during the debate—"Putin would eat you for lunch,” “World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump”—we need much more of this now. Pointing out that Trump supplied Putin with COVID tests is good but isn’t nearly enough. On Charlamagne Tha God’s radio show last week, Harris got it right by finally agreeing that MAGA is fascism and then saying of Trump: “The man is really quite weak. He’s weak. It’s a sign of weakness that you want to please dictators and seek their flattery and favor.”
Trump is doing his own circuit on right-wing podcasts, supposedly apolitical comedy shows (which mostly are not), YouTube shows and other parts of the "manosphere" and right-wing media universe. Trump hinted that he would be on Joe Rogan. Trump will potentially reach many millions of people, mostly disaffected men who may not be politically engaged but are certainly feeling like they are "victims" and searching for role models and guidance about how to be a "real man."
First, the Democrats should use these interviews with Trump as fodder not just to spotlight his misogyny, but to ridicule his small-handed, insecure manhood. Call it his Outreach to Incels Tour. Yes, the incels will rage but they’ll also be deflated and much of politically disengaged bro-land will snicker at Trump rather than rushing to the polls to vote for him. We know how Trump will react to that, which will give the Democrats even more to ridicule.
Second, Harris should go on Rogan herself. She’s got what it takes to charm and impress Rogan and his manosphere minions. She should also consider going on something like the Huberman Lab podcast. Andrew Huberman is a jacked Stanford neuroscientist who brings science to the masses and his show rates as the top health-and-wellness podcast in the world. He is apolitical, respectful of guests and free of the taint of bigotry. He also has an enormous, admiring audience among guys who bench over 250.
There are two dueling narratives as I see it among liberals, progressives and especially the hope-peddlers. Trump is done for as Harris’ lead is undercounted and we can’t determine the silent rage and outrage towards Trump and MAGA. All these closet anti-Trumpists among the GOP will supposedly come out in force. The other story is that Trump has silent voters and that “the economy” and “inflation” and immigration will carry it for Trump. Anecdotes are not necessarily reliable data but when I ride the bus with other working-class Black and brown folks, I hear lots of discontent about migrants and “illegal aliens,” jobs, how "Trump is crazy but sometimes tells the real truth" and some coolness towards and distrust of Harris. Where do you stand on this divergence of analysis and conclusions?
In polls taken in the last two weeks before the 2020 election, the average error in the vote margin was too favorable for Biden by about four percent in both national and statewide surveys. Of course, it’s possible that Trump is currently over-polling and Harris is under-polling, but that would represent a sea change from the past two presidential contests. We do know that Democrats are much more enthusiastic about Harris than they were about Biden when he dropped out and Harris is bringing in much more from small donors than Trump is. But I think the key variable here that isn’t getting as much attention is the possibility that enthusiasm for Trump might be declining, even if we are not yet seeing it in the polls. Harris’ high-dominance messaging when she first became the nominee delivered a serious blow to Trump’s tough guy image and undermined Trump’s morale. He no longer looked like he was having fun or was owning his opponents like he used to. He refused further debates and interviews outside friendly media outlets and his mood turned even darker and his energy fell. All these factors could put a dent in turnout for him.
But in order to continue to deflate Trump and support for him, Democrats have to keep making him look weak and pathetic and show themselves to be confident leaders who never avoid the truth, never fear Trump and never pander. Here their game could use some work. Let’s look at immigration, which you raise in your question. Harris is constantly being grilled on whether she and Biden should have moved earlier to stem the flow of undocumented migrants and her evasions are just leading to more embarrassing questions rather than getting the monkey off her back.
The truth is that illegal immigration was a problem early in the administration, but then she and Biden largely fixed it earlier this year. Harris could just say: You live and learn. Joe and I wanted to get this right and we weren’t going to do it by separating tear-soaked toddlers from their parents and putting them in cages like Trump did. So we did our homework and then took executive action to enact the tough legislation that Trump and the Republicans had derailed. Now we’re on the case and there are fewer illegal crossings than there were under Trump. Period. Next question. In other words, she could suck the power out of Trump’s demagoguery with a truthful, disarming mea culpa, display a capacity for learning and follow with a forceful declaration of victory. This would help counter the opinions of the folks you mention on Trump being a truth-teller, no matter how crazy, while being uncertain about Harris. Of course Harris is a person of the highest integrity, which you might expect in someone with her professional background. But demonstrating that overtly, especially to folks who don’t know you well, sometimes requires sticking your own unvarnished truth in their faces.
I also mentioned the people possibly buying Trump’s lies about the economy — on jobs, inflation, and the rest. What do you think is going on with that?
Harris’ messaging on the economy leaves people vulnerable to Trump’s distortions and lies about the superiority of his economy. It also stokes suspicions about Harris’ lack of audacity, grasp of Americans’ aspirations and mentalities, ability to add anything to what Biden has already done and commitment to the truth. This is a serious weakness in her messaging, though it could be corrected overnight.
Practically every time the subject of the economy arises in Harris’ interviews and public statements, she leads with a laundry list of subsidies and plays Santa Claus: I’ll give you $25k in downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers, $50k for a small business tax credit and a $6k credit for newborns. When asked how she’ll pay for all this, which would add trillions to the deficit, she says that a bunch of Nobel laureates said her program would be less deficit-ballooning than Trump’s. She adds something about making the rich and corporations pay their fair share, without specifying how the additional revenues would offset the costs of her programs. She typically doesn’t even mention economic growth, which is the driver of everything and without which none of her proposals have a chance.
This approach is riddled with weaknesses. First, it fails to declare how much better the economy is now than it was under Trump. Second, most Americans don’t intend to buy their first home, start a small business, or have a child over the next few years. Thus, her core proposals are of little immediate interest to the vast majority. Third, her message sounds redistributionist rather than pro-growth and economic freedom. Most Americans have a libertarian streak and a bootstrap mentality. They seek a policy environment that allows them to provide for and prosper themselves far more than they long to receive government benefits. In practical terms, moreover, most people grasp that raising the corporate tax rate is not a growth plan and it will lower profits and accordingly reduce stock gains. Half of Americans own stocks directly or through their 401k. Fourth, her message lacks a spirit of optimistic, patriotic zeal. It fails to proclaim and claim credit for America’s economic dynamism and global preeminence, which have deepened under the Biden-Harris administration.
So what would a winning message on the economy sound like?
First, it would declare victory and assert superiority over the Republicans. Owning your own successes and pounding them into voters’ heads is a hallmark of strong, opinion-shaping leadership. Harris isn’t doing this. She appears to be stuck in the 21st-century Democrat’s habit of fearing that she’ll be seen as uncaring if she crows about accomplishments, so she waits around to do it until polling shows everyone is “feeling the benefits.” But that’s getting it backward. People tend to believe what their leaders tell them. That’s why, in total contradistinction to the facts, most people thought and continue to think that the economy was much better under Trump than under Obama and Biden-Harris. Trump told them and still tells them that he presided over a stellar economy, while the Democrats after Bill Clinton have wrongly believed they score more points — even while they’re in power — by expressing sympathy for supposedly suffering voters.
Here is what Harris should be saying, though not necessarily with this much detail unless it’s an economy-policy speech: Even if we drop the 2020 COVID-induced slowdown, the economy has grown faster under Biden-Harris than it did under Trump. The stock market has been setting records, soaring far above Trump-era highs. Today it topped 43,000. Dream on, Donald. Biden-Harris’ economy has added an astonishing average of 12,000 jobs per day on average, twice as many as Trump’s economy added even before COVID hit. Inflation spiked a couple of years ago, but that was due entirely to COVID-induced supply-chain effects. We’ve hammered inflation down to two percent. The growth of wages has exceeded inflation every month for the past 18 months and counting. Our American companies are powerhouses of innovation, growth and job creation; as a result, we’re leaving the other big economies around the world, including China, in the dust. I want salaried employees and workers to get a fair share of the profits. Under my leadership, they will; under Trump, they won’t. Trump’s insane tariffs would also reignite inflation, stifle growth and leave our workers and companies struggling to keep up. During my presidency, we’ll supercharge growth, boost wages and companies’ profits and make Biden’s good economy pale by comparison. Like under Bill Clinton, our economy will grow so strongly that we’ll be able to slash the deficit as we go.
Harris could then add her plans on small business loans, down payment assistance for first-time buyers and the newborn tax credit. But her messaging architecture should lead with a powerful statement that speaks to — and glorifies — the entire nation while expressing wild optimism about our prospects under her leadership and contempt for Trump’s Paleolithic policy plans.
